Downwind

The other day I was watching this documentary on TV about the internet revolution. The documentary seemed dated and had nothing ‘revolutionary’ to talk about. But it got me thinking on the amount of content on the internet in all shapes and forms. There is so much content out there that the mind boggles and I am slowly migrating away from the internet to the more manageable print media. But even with all this extra content I maybe better informed, I am none the wiser. I don’t know where is the next big idea going to come from, where or when is the next religion going to come or which company is going to be the largest/biggest in the next 10 years. What countries are going to be the top three or five in the world. Yes India, China and US will be there, but crucially where will the next Japan come from. Which country will punch many times above its size ?

In my economics class I was taught about lead and lag indicators and I have found them to be quite fascinating. The lag indicators are easier to identify – global warming is to me primarily a lag indicator and can be also used as a lead indicator. Another lag indicator is the G20 grouping which represents the slow decline of power of G8. Maybe a lead indicator of G20 was when  years ago Goldman Sachs grouped BRICS together. I certainly missed that and as I write this today I am struggling to identify the lead indicators in the world today. Even if I was to put aside the bigger questions and ask the more ‘mundane’ questions like – when will the Security council be expanded and who will be part of the new grouping, what will Afghanistan be like 5 years from now or will I still be blogging 10 years from now ?

Sometimes the obvious answer is not the right answer. Who would have thought that even five years ago that by 2010, the world would have more or less forgotten Iraq and moved onto bigger and better things. What little was left of Iraq memory was wiped out by the recession or by the upsurge of violence in Afghanistan. No one remembers that the war was fought on lies and is probably the most expensive settling of scores that the world has ever seen. Yet the old adage , to the victor go the spoils, continues. One architect of the war has retired to his ranch probably trying to be born again into someone else. The other who is now an ambassador of inter-faith peace, middle east peace, global warming resolution, advisor to big corporates and a star guest speaker, appeared before a parliament inquiry to defend his decision to go to war over Iraq.Everyone now has a different fish to fry. Someone is after Iran, others are after China, someone thinks that Russian is the new Satan. Two wars later the original Satan , Osama Bin Laden, is still around and is in the middle of a PR transformation to a global warming campaigner !

In 2o2o, who will the biggest devil, who will be the biggest sheriff and more importantly what will they be fighting about ?

 

Midnight express

Many nights ago I was jetlagged and I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t seem to go back to sleep. As is the case my mind started to run and the conversations, events and people over the last few days started to run through my mind. This went for some time before I started to berate myself. What is the point of all this I told myself. Why can’t I rise up all this. I told myself where is my book going to come from, where is my first big idea, where is my philosophy to change the world. Like all other thoughts this too got lost in the chain.

My mind then turned to Delhi. I have had a strange relationship with Delhi. I love this city dearly and yet I dont know why I love it so much. This relationship is becoming more strange now that I dont live in Delhi. Everytime I come to Delhi, I dont feel like coming again and the more that I stay away from Delhi I want to go back to it. It is like i am straddling two boats and the boats are drifting apart. Unless I don’t resolve this quickly I am bound to fall in the middle and lose both the boats. My mind then moved onto why is it that I like Delhi so much.

For me Delhi has this energy that I dont feel anywhere else and I think I come back to feel this energy. This is the energy which comes from a city going about its business inspite of all the odds. There are power cuts, water shortages,high levels of pollution, extreme summer and a cold winter, lack of safety for women and children and yet the city shows up to work day after day. After work the city shows up in its now many malls, cinemas, late night marriages, night clubs in the middle of the week.They work hard because there is this immense desire to escape the tyranny of daily infrastructure management of fixing the inverter for backup power or ensuring that the water pump is switched on everyday or they will be no water.  To escape from this they pay astronomical sums for apartments in the middle of nowhere so they can get electricity and water at all times and so their children can be secure inside the ‘compound’. So while the administration falters in providing the basic services and regulating the private builders it overcompensated by allocating land to builders faster than you can say infrastructure.

Inspite of all this the city thrives.  It is probably the fastest going metro in the country and it will soon become the largest city if it is not one already. It is the laboratory of urban transport experiments like – more cars than anywhere else, more flyovers than any other city, biggest metro service and a bus corridor. The bus corridor is quite a sight. I used to see it everyday as it was on the main road near to my house. It is a sight I never thought I will see in Delhi. While the cars are stuck behind each other, the bus corridor offer a smooth ride to bus passengers who seem to alight and disembark almost lazily while the car owners look on. It is like as if the caste system has been reversed and even though you have spent more money you don’t get the right of way.

 

Sonar Bangla

In the time I spent in Delhi I spend as much time reading newspapers trying to understand if they are focusing more on international affairs. I also tried to watch news on television but I always found myself switching to BBC World News ! The feeling I always get is that while most Indians I meet think that India is destined to be a superpower , no one really knows what it means and the knowledge of the world beyond is very limited. The focus is more on the former and no one really talks about developing the latter.

From my limited reading, international news coverage is dominated by 30% Pakistan, 20% US, 20% UK and Australia, 20 % China and 10% the rest of the world (including the subcontinent). Pakistan has gone down over the years and China has come up and continued to stay up. There is still too little focus on China and East Asia and still too much focus on Pakistan. A leading national daily has launched a ‘people to people friendship’ venture along with a newspaper in Pakistan to promote peace in the two countries. I don’t see the point of this venture. Can this not be resolved by simply putting more people in Pakistan and getting more unbiased stories out of that country. Why this charade of this grand friendship venture? and why only with Pakistan ? what about Bangladesh, Nepal , Sri Lanka or even Japan. Japan is the second largest economy in the world, it is a big institutional investor in India, presents a counterweight to China in Asia and how much does the average newspaper reader know about that country. Especially when LDP has been voted out of power for the first time in more than 50 years. What does DPJ rule hold for India ?

But this post is about Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina was in Delhi around the same time. While she was feasting on ‘illish’ I was checking out news coverage of her trip in India and I was very disappointed. India’s relationship with Bangladesh has been a sticky one at best and a bad one at most times. My favourite story is when I was in Dhaka in 2001 on the 30th anniversary of its independence from Pakistan and while the newspapers were full of coverage of how the war was won, there was not one mention of India. If that is not an unqualified foreign policy disaster then I don’t know what is !  It is like  if Iraq celebrates its freedom from Saddam in 30 years time and there is no mention of the US !!

But more importantly – why is the media not going around town talking about this visit. Why is it fixated with Pakistan ? I have always been surprised about the lack of knowledge, in the non Bengali speaking community, about Bangladesh in India.  Exactly what is this country of 160 million people about ? I only hear about it when it is affected by a natural disaster or about illegal immigrants from across the border. India imports natural gas from middle east when Bangladesh sits on huge reserves. Is it really that impossible to get them to trade gas ?

By some stroke of fortune, India has finally got a Prime minister who understands the potential of good relations with Bangladesh and this trip was a successful one.  Bangladesh agreed to do things which I never thought would be possible even a year ago and India promised a 1 billion $ credit which I didn’t know it had lying around. The PM should know better than anyone else, he after all co-wrote a report on reconstruction of Bangladesh in 1972 !

 

Confessions of an autorickshaw passenger

I was an avid autorickshaw user when I used to live in Delhi. As market segmentation goes, autorickshaws sit somewhere between taxis and personal vehicles on one side and buses on the other side.  I couldn’t afford to have my own car and I was too posh to travel in buses.  So either I walked it or took the autorickshaw. I have had some of my  best experiences in autorickshaws and it is a way of discovering a city, and through it a country, like no other. Using an autorickshaw is a complex affair and it starts from the moment you decide that you want to hail one and it only ends when you reach your destination and paid your money. Between these two, anything can happen really.It is also your daily dose of negotiation, emotional blackmailing and threatening.

Autorickshaws in Delhi are notorious for not using fare meters and so for every trip fares are set  arbitrarily. They have a million reasons for not using the meter – it is raining so it is not working, it is too hot or too cold, the meter fare does not pay for my living expenses etc etc. It is not uncommon to get a breakdown of their income vs expenses and an analysis of how by using the meter they are sinking towards the poverty line. Once, the traffic police setup a helpline to report autorickshaw drivers who weren’t using their meter. I remember one day going through two autorickshaw stands and reporting about twenty cases to the helpline. I don’t know if they ever got fined, but I certainly got boycotted by them and they refused to even talk to me for the next two weeks.

Autorickshaws are also a good barometer of the state of urban infrastructure in the city and the differences across different neighbourhoods. Because they run on these tiny wheels and have no suspension to speak of, every little pothole feels like a ditch. So it is easy for me compare the state of the roads across different parts of the city. From what I remember, the state of roads in Lutyens Delhi all the way to Connaught Place were the best. The interior of autorickshaws sometimes makes for interesting reading. Usually the more interesting and done up ones are self-owned and the bare ones are on rent. The interiors usually have pictures of Gods and Goddesses, actors and actresses, family pictures, lots of mirrors and in some cases a full music system.

Autorickshaw drivers are some of the finest conversationalists I have come across. There is a lot of talk in Delhi but very little conversation. Once the rate is set and the journey is decided then it is time for the real conversation.  The drivers usually don’t start a conversation and it is usually me who starts to ask questions. If the auto has interesting pictures I ask them about that and one thing leads to another. Or I ask about where they are from, where do they live, about their family and how much do they manage to save etc. This time when I was in Delhi I used the auto twice and it was more out of the need for the conversation rather than needing a mode of transport.

First time I used the auto was at 3 am in the morning in front of a popular night club on a Monday night/Tuesday morning. It was biting cold and the night club was getting very boring. My most interesting conversations so far had been with the security guards and the bouncers. So when I finally decided to leave the nightclub I had to take an autorickshaw home. We first agreed on a rate and this time I only did some obligatory bargaining so he doesn’t feel that he could have asked for more. Then we talked about the night club scene in Delhi and which ones are the better ones and why. He asked if I drink and then he offered me some foul smelling thing which I declined. He then asked me why was I single and why didn’t I pick someone up from the nightclub, which prompted my question is that what people usually do here ? Then we talked about metro constructions and if that will affect his business.

Second time, was for a short duration and it was to go to a school reunion. This time the conversation was more interesting. The driver was from Purnea, Bihar and he was talking about how he is going to leave Delhi soon and go back to his land and business back there. He talked about how he makes 200Rs a day (after paying for rent and petrol) and from that he feeds his family and over the years has also managed to buy some land in his village. He said that he didn’t like Delhi, what with the pollution and all the hassles. We also spoke about the Purnea literary scene and he told me about a famous detective novels writer whose name I have now forgotten.  We spoke about Nitish and the difference he is making to governance in Bihar.

 

Wisdom of Whores

It is almost the end of the year and I have written my cynical end of the year post and I thought that is that for this year. However, I have just read this fantastic book (Wisdom of Whores – Elizabeth Pisani) and it has brought back all sorts of memories and I can’t help but write. The book is about the AIDS and the AIDS industry. It details through the personal experiences of Elizabeth the trials and travails of an ‘international AIDS consultant’ as she goes around different countries trying to make sense of the problem and initatives to address (or circumvent) the core issue. But this post is not about the book which, by the way, is absolutely fantastic. I have rarely written about my time in the international aid industry. At that time I convinced myself that I was not going to write about work and since then I have told myself that it is not important. Now it has been more than 3 years since I left it and I think I am ready to break my self-imposed non disclosure agreement.

I spent about 8 years in the international aid industry in India looking after money, budgets, procurement, grants, contracts. I used to work for US based NGOs also known as the Beltway Bandits who used to set up shop in country to implement projects and deliver whatever they had planned to the donor (usually USAID). The projects were in energy efficiency, clean technology  (not as sexy then as it is now), energy regulatory reform, sharing electricity in south asia, women’s legal rights, bird flu (in Indonesia), nutrition and private sector partnerships (P2P!). I was the bean counter usually reporting to senior bean counter. My job was to ensure that the US tax payer money was well accounted for and that we were staying within the regulations of our donor.I was young, reasonably well paid and I thought I was playing my role in making the world a better place. Since then I have had the opportunity to reflect upon from what I learnt from my bean counting years.

There are a lot of beans to count ! My first reaction at any project budget and at the beginning of a project was usually that we are going to do so little for so much. But I was thinking field and grassroots and not head office. I was not thinking American salaries, american suppliers, the CEO’s office charging time on all its projects, the expensive consultants, the 5 star hotels, business class flights.

I was not thinking that most of the money is spent either on startup or shut down. So if you are a 3 year project with a $5m budget then you spent about $2m in the 6 months of startup and the 6months of shut down. Why ? Its simple silly. The beginning of the project is when the client needs work plans, budgets, that is when you bring out all your shiny crockery (expensive consultants)  to impress the client, you take over half the floor of the best 5 star hotel that money can buy, you also set your burn rate (the rate at which you spend money) at a suitably impressive rate so the client doesn’t even dream that you have too much money and too little work. You also hire the country director, his/her palatial house, moving allowance, pay 3 years rent in advance for an expensive office space, buy air conditioners and cars. Phew! You would think that the project was about giving money to the most expensive contractors in town.

The project end is the final 6 months where all real work stops and then it is a working backwards exercise of how do we spend the remaining $1m in 6 months. After all we did swear to the client in the last budget meeting that we will spend the last cent so please don’t take that money from us. It is all ‘committed’ after all. Committed for what ? Expensive reports, documenting, taking the office down and everyone ’s last chance to get their billing on the project while the client is more interested in the next stage of the project, last chance for one last trip to India, for more airmiles and last chance for all the greedy contractors to sell stuff that no one really needs.

But for me all this would have been useful if the work we had been doing was of any benefit. Could we have done something else, or something more with the same amount of money? Was there too much emphasis on counting the beans rather than what beans do we use to begin with. Did South asia really need an energy sharing project which didn’t include Pakistan (it was under American sanctions), did 30-40 middling bureaucrats really need to travel every month from one exotic hotel to another to listen to some trainer talking about how it works in the US when all they really cared about were the per diems and the cocktail reception. What did all that achieve. Few hundred units of trade ? From my personal career point of view – I am not complaining. I got to travel to places I had never imagined i would go, I got to stay in places which I still can’t afford and I got bean counting experience which will hold me in good stead.

Because I was running the numbers it was easy for me to see how much of the project money was being spent in India and how much was being spent on American contracts, consultants, vendors etc. In one project, I counted 70% of the money was spent in the US, in another about 50% and that too because the project manager (an expat) was quite keen to spend as much money as he could in the field. Some years down the line the Indian government started to insist that the country director should be an Indian so the project does not have to pay for expensive salaries, international schooling for kids, cars, bungalows etc and so more money can be spent on ‘program activities’. In another project, I had a big argument with the project manager because I insisted that I will not bend the procurement in a particular direction. As in all arguments, the head office/expat has the right of way.

But my most memorable time has been spent translating sub grant agreements to a bunch of wide-eyed NGOs. This was usually in the middle of nowhere (by that I mean far away from a luxury hotel), all of us squatting on the floor and me taking these grassroot workers through the fine points of American legalese. It was a simultaneous act of translation and simplification.  One point on which we all laughed about loudly was about them not supporting ‘legalisation of prostitution’. This was under the Bush government which was itself under faith-based organisations and legalisation of prostitution was not on and so it was deemed that all organisations accepting US money will sign up to it. Another funny certification was the anti-terrorism legislation !

Like Elizabeth Pisani says in her book – we were all whores.

 

A cynical year

I often ask myself at the end of a year – what I have a learnt this year or rather , and increasingly so, what I have managed not to forget this year. This list of what I have managed not to forget is an interesting and varied list and I want to put it down so I can look back at it later and laugh or cry depending on what I write !

So what I have learnt this year:

I have learnt that my father was right on one count atleast. He used to say that there should be one leader (and that was him) in the house, company or any other organisation. If that is not the case there is confusion. As I see the world becoming multipolar again and US becoming more of a mediator in more cases and enforcer in less cases there is an increased cacophony of opinions around the world. I say cacophony is because a lot of these countries are just speaking for the sake of it and don’t have anything interesting to contribute to the affairs of the world. Its like a little child who starts to speak and its gibberish for some time before any sense comes out. I read, watch and listen in vain for some sense to come out of somewhere to give me hope that a fresh new voice will come from somwhere. But so far my Dad is winning.

I have learnt that money has an interesting way of finding its way around, especially to the people who deserve it the least. Even if all the power of the world is against them receiving the money they will still get it and when they get it the world shrugs off and moves on. Its like this movie I once saw about the life of a bullet, I wish someone would do a movie on the life of a currency note. In some countries around the world, there should be no money (atleast no foreign money) if you believe the sanctions industry, yet money gets there in reasonable amounts. Too many undeserving bankers are still getting pots of money and too many talented artists are still begging for whatever comes their way. In the middle are people like me who are not bankers (so we think that we deserve some bonus), but also are not artists (so we can’t count a 10 sec longer applause as a salary increase). We don’t get the applause or the money. We don’t even get a Xmas party. Yet we are told we should be happy that we have a job. I didn’t sign up for this form of capitalism. Why is the invisible hand not shaking hands with me ?

I have learnt that global problems are actually global at a national/regional level. So my global problem is not your global problem unless you live next door. So environment is a global problem mostly in Europe and some parts of the developed world. Healthcare is a global problem if you read a paper in the US everyday. Poverty and hunger are global problems in big parts of the developing world but don’t really affect the developed world where as Xmas arrives lack of food is hardly one of the worries. If I make one assumption that we are all worried about death then the only global problem facing us is that we and our near/dear ones will all die one day.

I have learnt that it is never about what you want , but more about how you go about getting it. You can get pretty much anything possible if you go about it in the right way. This sort of feeds back into something I remember that the path is more important than the objective.

I have learnt that morality is subjective. One man who sleeps with some women is forced to defend himself over and over again, while one who lied to the world and invaded two countries is probably sharpening his powerpoint skills for his return to the lecture circuit. How is one worse than the other ? Who decides that ? Where is the moral code for humanity which decides what is moral and immoral and why is one more immoral than the other ?

What have I managed not to forget:

I have not forgotten the nights I used to be up doing absolutely nothing. Most of the writing that I go back to has been written in the middle of the night. For me , the nights are the time where abstract comes close to reality and I feel I can touch both at the same time.

Some of the most interesting people (apart from my love) that I have met , I have only met for too short a time. I wish I could meet them again and again. Some I have not even met although sometimes I make myself believe that we have met. They’ve influenced me in more ways than possible and I can never forget.

When I am distressed, I somehow seem to remember my time as a 16 year old. It wasn’t like I was having the time of my life, but it was the innocence, the complete lack of ambition and lack of awareness about the world around. Its a wonderful feeling.

Cynicism is the only way for me to stop myself from going mad !

 

A rat’s world

What to write ?

Should I talk about how I see myself becoming more and more cynical about things. This cynicism is sometimes like standing in a smokers room and it makes me yearn for something different, for some fresh air. When the fresh air arrives I miss the cigarette smoke to go along with it. A better analogy is of a rat. I often look out for rats on the London underground. I marvel at how close they are to me, to the expensive shoes, to the posters of the latest new musical in town. I sometimes make myself believe that the rats are looking at us. Then I think about their view of our world.I wonder if they get to see the dirt under the shoes, of trousers hems showing signs of age, do they get to see hairy armpits, hair inside the nostrils , sweat on hot summer days. Do they get to see everything that we try so hard to hide and pretend that it doesn’t exist.

My rat eye view tells me that there is a negative to everyone and everything. When I say negative , it is not what I perceive as negative, but what people perceive as negative in themselves. This is what people try to gloss over, put make up over and hope that no one notices it. To me that is the most fascinating part of that person and then that becomes the start of my journey into a person’s mind. So you have a good job, but are you really happy ? Is this really what you want to be doing? More importantly this also helps me to manage expectations (which means to keep them low) both with myself and with other people. It helps me understand why politics is the way it is and also why the business of AIDS has been a shot in the arm for faith-based organisations.

It helps me understand why Copenhagen is mostly about politics and environment is almost a side product. The leaders who get together could be talking about anything. It helps me see that the leaders for this summit are not even half as scared about this issue as they were about economic recession. They know that their governments are not going to fall, the majority of their electorate doesn;t really care much beyond their local recycling measures, the world is not coming to an end before the next election and more importantly this is the last photo-op for the year before everyone goes off for their ski holiday.

Some days when I need a laugh I wonder about how will the aspirations of a generation of Indians will be changed in a generation. They’ve just grown up being brainwashed to the aspirational western way of life – of unlimited food, water, electricity, where you are only limited by your imagination and not by natural resources. Just when they feel that utopia is within the reach, just when they feel that they’ve earned it through their long hours at work, broken relationships and the penthouse on the 20th floor where even the rats can’t reach, they are told that they were swinging in the wrong golf course. They are now to be told to use public transport again, to not overtly try to control the weather around them, to not take flights at the drop of a hat and not waste food. How can you change the definition of a good life ? even God doesn’t have the right to do that.

Then there is Tiger Woods. Or rather the rise and fall of Tiger woods. What is our fascination with perfect people. People who are committed to their families, jobs, charity and what have you. Not one step out of line, not one hair out of place, perfect families, kids, houses. And then it all comes tumbling out.  Why this fascination with perfection when it doesn’t exist ?

 

Me2 G2

As I sit here watching the rain pour down in London, it feels like any other tropical storm except it is also cold. I constantly look up to the skies for any break in the clouds. I also hope to see a special aircraft flying from India on the way to Washington DC. The plane is carrying Manmohan Singh on his first state visit to the US. But my expectations of this trip are rock bottom. I had more expectations from the G20, or even   summit. This trip is going to be all about symbolism, about reiterating stuff that has been many times in the past, about just keeping in the status quo in so many ways. At the end of this week, it’s going to be like a Hollywood movie which I sometimes call as ‘good’ but not sure what it was really about. I am going to try and make sense of some of the issues that might be on the menu.

US and India have steadily upgrading their relationship in the past 18 years or so. US understands the language of money better than any other country in this world. For the US , India signifies money and it also signifies less effort (as compared to China) to get to that money. Less effort in the sense of political and policy shenanigans that need to happen on the side for that money to come out. I use the word shenanigans because I like it (reminds me of 80s sex romps) and also because Obama’s treatment of the Dalai Lama issue was nothing short of one ! So US absolutely have to be in India no matter what and it is in India even in areas it never though it could ever be (defence industry, nuclear energy etc). Yes there is scope to enter even more areas and make even more money but all in due time. So in the economic sense not sure what Obama has to tell to Manmohan that he doesn’t know already. Obama is committed to Asia , as is Manmohan committed to the ASEAN and so there is already a lot of common ground. I can’t see a major new agreement coming through.

On the issue of Kashmir which is now again quite dear to the US because their friends in Pakistan like to use it from everything ranging from their need for a N-bomb to the problems with Taliban. I wonder what will happen to Pakistan when the Kashmir issue does get resolved. So there will be the usual statement to get Kashmir resolved through bilateral means and India will probably update the US on what is happening with the latest on the back channel diplomacy.

But the one issue which might be interesting will be the Afghanistan issue. This is not because Obama has a burning desire to consult India, but more because Obama ia about to arrive at a decision and India has economic interests in Afghanistan and plays the soft power role. It also has reasonably good relations with Iran and there could be the scope of these two countries joining up forces against the Taliban with the quiet blessing of the US which needs all the help it can get in Afghanistan. Manmohan was interviewed by Newsweek just before his trip and there are two things that stand out for me. One that the majority of the interview is about Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran ( the 3 major worries of the US in Central and South Asia) and also about what has been left unsaid. I am still not sure exactly what was the Iranian foreign minister doing in India just before this trip. The second bit was about the economy and how little attention was paid by the interviewer to economic matters.

Which finally brings me to Pakistan. Whatever I read about Pakistan, it seems to point towards a change of power. Zardari and his clique seems to be on the way out and Nawaz is the only other popular politician around, assuming that the army doesn’t want to come back to power in these politically correct times. It has all the trappings of power anyways without the abuse. That could be another point of discussion of what does India think about Nawaz. Both him and Manmohan speak Punjabi but that is where the similarity ends. They both seem to come from completely gene pools. Manmohan is the economist turned reluctant politician who can write theories of trade in his sleep, Nawaz thinks he has a God-given right to govern and is a businessman although his style may not be too endearing to an economist. But better India deal with a Lahore based Punjabi than a Karachi based Sindhi. I am half and half of either so I know what I am talking about !

So the visit is going to be Obama talking about a special/really special/deeply special – you get the drift- with India, the state banquet in cold DC outdoors and the wives talking about how to bring up daughters. If I was a fly on the tandoori chicken I would be paying attention to the Pashminas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Blighty

The other day I asked myself the question why is it that I have hardly written about my adopted country. Why is it that I don’t write about my impressions of England, about my impressions of London and how is it like to live in those old and very complex country. The first answer that I got back was that I don’t know much about England and I have only been here a few years. But since when has lack of understanding has never stopped me from blogging about something and it won’t stop me now !

I find British politics really interesting. The 3 main parties to me seem to have very similar policies when it comes to governance, economy, welfare, international affairs etc. Yet elections are fought with great passion but to me the differences between the centre, centre left and centre right and not really obvious. In different areas of government the left and right sometime even switch places. But this post is not about British politics. It is about my view of Britian’s role in the international scheme of things. Britian has a lot of inherent strengths. It is probably the only country of its type and size in the worldwhich has a finger in all the different pies around the world. Which given its size means a huge punch above its weight. It has a great relationship with the US across their political spectrum, it is part of the Lisbon treaty (sort of), there is the Commonwealth (and if you think the Commonwealth is dead, then please go to Delhi and see what do the Commonwealth Games mean for a city of 15 million people),  a small finger in ASEAN (via Hong Kong). Its soft power via the BBC, English football, British Council and english language itself goes to far off places. Its unique geographic location puts it in the middle of a closing Japanese and Australian markets and opening American markets.

But all this may soon be changing for 2 primary reasons. One, the new geostrategic relationship between China and the US can be done via the Pacific and completely bypass everything in the middle. US wants to deal directly with Asia and Asia in turn wants to deal directly with Africa. How does UK and London stop itself from becoming another Singapore or a HK? This is not to say that Singapore or HK are not important in the scheme of things, but then there are only economic centres and not seats of power. No G20 gets convened there, no Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran decisions are not taken there and no one thinks of these cities and thinks ’soft power’.

Secondly, UK is stuck in a neighbourhood which has for all practical purposes retired from business of running the world. The Europe has many claims to greatness but there have all been in the past. It is now mostly running on its past laurels. I dont see anything new and innovative coming out of Europe. I don’t see them trying to engage China. All I see is bickering and more exclusiveness. Europe is increasingly being defined by who is out of it rather than who is in it. I had great hopes from the recent elections of the EU president and that too have been dashed. The new president had this to say about Turkey’s membership some years ago. He sounds more like the head of the church of Europe. This is when Turkey is  increasingly becoming pivotal in world affairs !

Which brings me back to my original point. Where does Britian go from here and what becomes of it. UK is not content being part of the EU because it sees a lot of things differently and in some cases rightly so. It can’t be content hanging onto the coat tails of Obama and hope that some thing will come its way. They need to bring something more than table beyond just sending troops. It can’t just remain open and hope that people from all over the world will continue to invest in this country. It is also not big enough anymore to take independent positions of its own.

For once I don’t have an answer !

 

 

 

 

Musings of a beachbum

So much has happened since I last wrote. But in my mind all this had already happened and the only difference is that it has only now got reported in the news. Yes i know it all and I know it before it gets reported. My other name is Zeus, master of Gods, and I gave birth to Athena on a sunny day while sipping ouzo.

My favourite news is the crowning of G20 as the primary country grouping on economic and financial matters. G20 still has too much of Europe in it. Including EU and excluding UK it still has 4 seats. Also not sure what will happen when some new countries enter the top 20. Will countries be dropped off the grouping and what will that do to investor confidence in that country. G8 although will still discuss political and security issues, that is the role of the Security Council. G8 saw the writing on the wall in an ever-increasing font size, but to their credit they did chose to see now and not 5 years later. The latter strategy is now being employed by the Security council. Also there are still a lot of issues that the west leaders still dont see – unfair practices is one, immigration is another and climate change is the big daddy of them all. I could go on but Zeus is not known for ranting. He is prone to resolving issues with a discus throw or launching a thunderbolt. Neither of these I posses and so I will not compare myself with Zeus anymore.

Then within the G20 is the G2. I am highly amused with the headlines of how China is going to take over the world, 3 trillion of reserves, future of the communist party etc etc. I wonder how much of this surplus is because of American consumption and of its ‘allies’. On the other hand there is a relatively lack of Chinese consumption of American made stuff. If the Americans cant make anything that the Chinese want then that needs a serious rethink. Maybe the world has shifted from Americans trying to understand what Americans want and then trying to export it to the rest of the world (what americans want today, the world wants tomorrow) to Americans really trying to understand what the world wants. Maybe the American consumer is not a barometer of the world demand as it was before. A good start will be with America ceasing to look for signs of Chinese collapse. Every year there is some story of how the communist party is losing its grip on its people. Then next year and 1 trillion dollars later the old story is forgotten and a new one is cooked up.

Maybe Obama can move on from calling China ‘not a friend, not an enemy but a competitor’. Not sure what that means really. But even in recognising China as a competitor is an admission that the world is moving to bipolar and multipolar states. What does that mean for the countries that are on the margin, who are either openly against the US or only with the US because the other option is usually to be under sanctions of one form or the other. One example that comes to mind is Pakistan. Its ruling class (politicians, army, landholders) have been forced by the US to wage a war with the Taliban against their wishes. All this for a couple of billion dollars of aid a year. During the cold war they got much more with no questions and didn’t have to hear the US calling India its ’strategic ally’. Soon to add to the music will be IMF which will probably ask Pakistan to expand its tax base, reform land ownership. It would rather pledge its soul to the new devil in town , also known as an all weather friend’. For some land and dams China will give Pakistan the money to keep the status quo. Pakistan can either take the money or use that threat against the US. It could still do it if it can survive for the next 10 years in its current condition.

But the bigger question is what will G2 mean to the world ? what does it mean to have a superpower rise? Most of the world’s population was too young or not born to see the early decades of the cold war. How will America respond to its waning influence ? One sign that is already visible is that it is clearly focussing more on Asia. It wants to be part of the proposed East Asia grouping. The other bit is ofcourse it will want the G2 to quickly become a G3 or a G4. There is no shortage of superpower ambition around the world and that only needs a little encouragement !

 

Sign up bonus

A sign up bonus is a term I have heard often in the recent years. I first heard it in the heady days of BPO in India when the too many jobs were chasing a few top graduates and then I heard it when I got to London, and heard it was standard practice in the City. Ofcourse then the economic recession happened and now there is no bonus to speak off at all. But I remembered this term again when I heard today that Obama has been given the nobel peace prize. I thought to myself that this must be a sign to the world that the economic recession is now easing and the Swedes usually have a good sense of the world’s pulse. Obama has been given a sign up bonus in form of the nobel peace prize.

I don’t know enough about the history of the prize to understand what it is about. I don’t know how many times in the past has it been given to people who have just started to talk about what is it that they want to do. The only prizes I have known are the ones that are given out of achievement. Unless I have been reading the news from Mars, Obama really hasn’t achieved anything spectacular. Yes he is trying, yes he is beginning to act to what he promised but then since when did that become a criteria to award prizes. Yes he should be supported and given all the political capital but this prize is the wrong way to do it.

To me this represents a committee clutching at straws and struggling to keep itself relevant. This prize has been given to Obama out of hope. It is hard for me not be cynical of this decision and compare the merits of the other nominees. I begin to wonder why was Tsvangirai not considered good enough. Maybe instead of getting up beaten up by Mugabe’s goons and trying to fight rigged elections and seeing his supporters going missing, he should have been giving speeches in the unique style that Mr. Obama has made it his own. Maybe in the style of African opposition resistance he should have taken up arms that I am sure some of his Western friends would have been only too happy to sell instead of joining the government and then going around the world with a begging bowl so salaries can be paid. It is people like him and the other beleaguered peace activists who got nominated to the prize who need the political capital that a peace prize can provide and not Mr Obama (even though about 50% of his country does not now believe in some of his reforms)

Obama in his acceptance speech looked as surprised as I was. He probably thought he had a better chance at the Olympic bid. He accepted the peace prize in his grand style as a call to action to confront the challenges in the 21st century. Call to which action Mr. President ? Is it the action that you demand of your own lawmakers for not passing the regulation on emissions while you lecture the developing world to control their emissions. Or is it the action to Israel to stop building settlements which it refuses to heed, or is it the good war in Afghanistan where you have just supported a rigged election, or is the world’s biggest hoarder of nuclear weapons lecturing the world again on a nuclear free world. And because your predecessor was so bad and because you can tell your Shia from a Sunni we listen, clap and nod our head in acceptance.

Obama often says that he admires Gandhi. Gandhi also said -be the change you want to see in the world.  And lets start with Copenhagen, one week from now.You’ve got the sign up bonus, its now time to deliver !

 

Year so far

I think I am a pretty hopeless writer and it has got nothing to do with my writing. It has all got to do with my thinking. I can’t seem to hold on to a thought for more than a moment. My mind at the moment is like a sponge full of water. Its heavy and feels pregnant. It can’t take anything new without throwing out something. I have a good mind to throw it into the dustbin and start again. I feel I am too full of opinions, pre conceived notions and conclusions Before someone even starts to speak, I have already guessed it from the ‘non verbal signals’ (demeanour, background etc) what the person is going to say and I have already come to my conclusion. It doesn’t matter then what the person has to say, my reaction is ready on the basis of what my mind has told me.  This is not just for personal conversations, it is also true for news incidents.

Like for example this merger that is being planned between MTN (in south africa) and Bharti (in India). I know in my mind where this is going. I can see that the governments have gotten involved. The heads of both companies have clout in their respective governments and both governments it seems are willing to bend to let this merger happen. No one is talking about how this merger is going to be successful. How will the different cultures of the two organisations meet. What is being talked about is how the merger will create the third largest telecom company. Even a first grader can do the maths if he is told – A has 2 phones, B has 3 phones. If A and B were to put their phones together how many phones do they become.  Sure the boy can’t talk about synergies, but neither can the media. I know this merger is going to happen, the media is going to celebrate it as another sign of India’s success in the global arena and then they are going to move onto to the next charade. But I have very serious doubts if this can have a long term future.

One word I hear worryingly too much these days is efficiency savings. Most political leaders include this in their speeches. It is hard to see a powerpoint these days without this phrase. It is to me the buzzword for the credit crunched and outsourced world. If I was to remember this year, five years on, I would remember this as the year of the efficiency savings. This was the year when you just had to use this phrase and you caught everyone’s attention. Even I, in my all knowing ways, had never imagined that this would become a fad.

If I stretch my mind to its limit, I can maybe remember this year as also the year of the Chinese ghost. This world in recent history has known many ghosts. It has know the communist ghost, the japanese ghost and now it is the Chinese ghost. Couple of a weeks ago I sat through a 101 on the south china sea and how China has captured land illegally from Vietnam. Then there was this whole media hype in India over the so called Chinese incursions. Earlier in the year was the huge trade imbalances in the favour of China. Coming next month is the 60th anniversary party of the communist party. I have no way of knowing whether China did make incursions into India, if it killed Vietnamese fishermen or if it fudges its numbers to understate its trade surpluses.

I guess even the sponge has its limits !

 

Freedom Fries

It was independence day the other day and my head was full of all sorts of thoughts. It is hard for me to make sense of them but in my time honoured tradition, I feel like marking the occasion, making a speech or something. It’s a bit late to do a flag hoisting so this post will have to do.

It is a bit surreal for me to see Manmohan Singh to make the speech from Red Fort. The Red fort has seen so many rulers in its time. Yet I wonder if it knows what to make of this one. He doesn’t sound like a ruler, his demeanour is certainly not of one, he is not a rabble rouser, he doesn’t ‘carry’ the audience with him, he can’t win an election and even his Jai Hinds don’t sound as passionate. He is one of the back room boys who has been pushed into the front room. I vaguely remember his first speech and I remember feeling sorry for him. I felt sorry for him because he would never quite get the credit for being who he is simply because he was a plant and even as plants go he had no front room skills. I also felt sorry for our country which I thought doesn’t quite deserve him and certainly hadn’t voted for him to be the prime minister. When he first made his speech no one would have predicted that he would still be making a speech 5 years, one election and a heart surgery later. I certainly didn’t expect that.

For the first time in the history of India, a non-politician has been at the helm of affairs for so long. While you could argue that some of these years have been spent learning some political skills on the job, some of these have also been spent bringing back room discipline to politics. I see more and more of it in the new government. The new government has set off on a breathtaking pace, by Indian standards, and all the ministries are rushing out with their 3 months, 6 months and annual plans. This is almost like a company announcing its quarterly results (probably another backroom skill being brought to governance). More importantly, the PM is also asserting his newly learnt front room skills. He has got himself an external affairs minister who is not exactly a heavyweight in foreign affairs, the heavyweight (who is also effectively the deputy PM) has been moved to Finance and in finance there is no bigger heavyweight than the PM himself. That is a move that Indira Gandhi would have been proud of. There is also so much politically correct about this prime minister. He is a Sikh and there is no bigger patriot than him as he himself told the Left parties during the nuclear stand off last year.

This brings me nicely onto what I want to talk about next. As a child I have totally bought into India’s moral standing in the world. India since independence has had a lot to say to the world on the right path. Whatever the country did was given this cloak of the morally correct thing to do. That cloak has come off, and in some cases rightly so, since the 90s. India is increasingly part of the world that now fights for scare resources and it now does whatever needs to be done to feed its economic development. This is quite interesting as all the top economies have subtle or big differences in their political outlook but that doesn’t stand in the way of meeting their economic objectives which are quite similar.

I am not sure what is India looking to gain by holding out on climate change talks. Yes our per capita emissions are among the lowest in the world, yes there is an additional cost to be borne for low carbon development and yes the developed world is responsible for most of the environmental mess if not all of it. Yes to all of that. But then what about the moral cloak, what about doing the right thing, or atleast to be seen to be doing the right thing. It makes sense if India is holding out for a better deal from the developed nations, but then what was a good deal 2 years ago is probably now a non-existent deal in a credit crunched world. The Copenhagen summit is 5 months away and India refuses to budge.

Can we not tell the developed world, that even though you have messed up our planet, we will help you clean it? Because we are India and we always do the right thing. Jai Hind.

 

Le Divorce

A friend of mine once gave me a very interesting insight into marriage. She said that people after they get married start to hate those very things that they loved about their spouses before marriage. I have decided to take that argument a step forward and say that people start to love those very things that they hated in their spouses when they were married. I say this out of experience because there is a divorce playing out in my head. This is my divorce with Delhi.

I lived in (with) Delhi for many years and I think we would have continued to live for happily ever after if I had not called it quits and moved away. I was the perfect spouse because I loved Delhi more than Delhites. I thought I needed a break and it will do me good. But Delhi I think lost no time in throwing me out of her life and ofcourse she has no shortage of suitors. I now sit here like a jilted ex-spouse and start to reminisce about the same things that I used to hate about Delhi. I miss the feeling of sweat running down my neck, I miss the chaos in everything, I miss waking up in the middle of the night on a hot summer night because of a power cut, haggling with a rickshawallah to get to work everyday and fighting over parking space ! I feel infinitely jealous if someone is going to Delhi, I want to be on all work and fun related trips that go to Delhi.

So while Delhi is in the middle of a makeover for the commonwealth games, I sit here and go to obscure lectures by people who have written books about her. I sit here biding my time and wondering if we will have a second romance.

 

The night sky

As a child one of my favourite past times has been to stare into the night sky. What I liked the most in the night sky , apart from the moon, was the fact that I could make up as many constellations as I went along. I could include and exclude stars from my constellations. As a kid I had even invented names which I can’t remember now ! So as I stared into the night sky I was wondering where are my constellations in my real world ? Where is my ability to include the dots/stars/news stories and come up with my unique conclusions? Why if someone asked me about some incident I will repeat back what I read or heard somewhere. Why do my constellations disappear when I need them the most, or rather where do I disappear when they need me the most. There are so many of them constellations just waiting to be formed.

I am intrigued by this recent decision of Russia to grant the US a supply route to Afghanistan . This has been coming for a couple of years now, but why now? Why so immediately after the SCO of which the US is not even a member, so soon after Musharraf’s trip to Moscow who was then followed by Kayani. This is the first time Russia is getting openly involved in the affairs in Afghanistan since its own pull out in 1989. S0 20 years later the good guys and the bad guys are getting together again to fight the Taliban who were initially part of the good guys but are now the bad guys. There is still a lot of opium coming out of Afghaistan, the government writ still doesn’t run outside of Kabul and the Taliban still freely move across Af-Pak. To say that I am confused, is an understatement.

Then there was the BRIC summit last month and I am still not sure what to make of it. This has probably the first grouping of its kind which has come together because a certain Goldman Sachs analyst thought up these disparate countries as one group. Fine so it makes some sense in a weird sort of a way to group them. But then like those school puzzles I think there is not one but two odd men out. First is Brazil which is so out of all the action. It is in a relatively peaceful neighbourhood, with no jehadis to worry about and far far away from all the action (and gas) in Asia. There is Russia which now increasingly reminds me of an ageing footballer who makes up for the lack of speed and stamina with some cunning tricks. So Brazil wants a piece of the action, Russia wants to be seen with the cool kids  but exactly what were the heads of India and China doing there ? They both have big countries to run and atleast in China’s case, if not India, BRIC needs China more than it needs BRIC. China can at a flick of a little finger command most heads of Africa in audience and India on the little flick of its big finger can command Nepal,SL and Bhutan too ! Bangladesh would also come but then she will not have a country to go back to.  But then this is only the first meeting of BRIC and I watch with anticipation if BRIC becomes a BIC or a BISC (with SA in it). I will be very surprised if Russia remains in BRIC after 2011 after India gets its Admiral Gorshkov.

The British are in a bad mood these days. The humor is getting sharper by the day. First they have been told up by MPs , post expenses scandal, from developing countries to apply their good governance advice to themselves. Then there is the recently concluded EU-Pak summit in which the EU was represented by the Czech president, who held the presidency of EU at that time. Imagine a former colonial power being left out in a summit with its colony. Another example of how most decisions concerning the UK are being taken in Brussels ( I swear I read about it somewhere but I can’t find it now!). So a diminishing foreign influence, some decisions being taken in Brussels, public debt of monstrous proportions, anglo-saxon model in disarray and on to top it all the great British hope had to go and lose in the Wimbledon semi finals. The Olympics glory seems like a long time ago.

 

Train to Pakistan

The other day while watching the so called ‘friendy’ cricket match between India and Pakistan, I asked myself the question – what is my first memory of Pakistan. I don’t remember clearly, but I am quite sure that it has to be someone from my family telling me about their life before partition, in what is now Pakistan. This memory recall almost always had something around how rich their families were over there. They had huge landholdings, bricks of gold (!) and lots of servants. I heard no one say that they were not so well to do or were just about ok. Everyone was very rich which I find hard to believe. I think it was ingrained in everyone’s mind that they were rich because this way they could convince the refugee settlers to give them a good deal in India.

At some point in my life I became quite fascinated with Pakistan.  The idea behind the fascination I think was that here is this country of 160 million people who are of exactly the same gene pool as Indians, who speak the same language, who consume the same culture and I know know more about its intelligence agency than its 5 major cities ! Indian media was of no use and all it could talk about was how Pakistan was meddling in India’s affairs. They had to be more to the country than that. Sitting in India there was not much I could find out except read Pakistani media. For almost a year, I think, I read Pakistani newspapers as often as I could. I mostly read Daily Times, Dawn and Friday Times. All of these made fascinating reading. Over the months a few things became clear. Day to day life in Pakistan was similar to the grind that a lot of Indians go through everyday. There was the usual gripe about prices, jobs and lack of development. There was a lot of talk of the nuclear deterrence and how Pakistan is the first Muslim nation to get it. Foriegn policy was mostly restricted to India, US, UK, China and the Arab world. India was as poorly represented, or rather misrepresented, in the media.

I now have the oppurtunity to speak to more Pakistanis and read more of their news. I still think that there is a lot of big talk without any attention being paid to the some of the more boring day to day stuff. The big talk is about Pakistan’s right to have nuclear weapons, Kashmir issue, the Af-Pak politics, military strategy, debates on islam etc. The boring stuff about poverty, development, employment, trade is somehow glossed over.  It irritates me to no end that the country can’t get its act together. The nation is rich in national resources, it has demographics on its side, it is neighbours with two of the fastest growing economies in the world, next door to most of the oil and gas in the world and yet the country’s leaders are always so involved in the ‘big stuff’ that this gets neglected. If the anecdotal evidence of support at international cricket matches is  anything go by then it also has a diaspora willing to engage in the country’s development.

The image in my head is of a man standing on an island, that is being slowly washed away in a flood, and lecturing the world on how to manage its affairs. The world’s standard response to the man is that if you are so smart then why are you still stuck on that island.

 

Democratic dividend

I wrote in my last post about the silly season in Indian politics. In one of those silly debates on media someone , i forget who, made a very interesting point. He said that there is no way that a Congress/UPA government will be voted in again as there is the anti-incumbency factor and that the incumbent government hadn’t done anything extra ordinary to be voted back into power. I thought this was a good point and I thought up this blog post about Sonia Gandhi. The post was going to be about how Sonia has been incharge of party politics over the past 5 years, she has had no responsibility of being a member of the government and she had the unquestioning loyalty of her party. On the other hand the opposition leaders had the dual task of opposing the government in the parliament, manging the politics and also managing a party which may not always be completely loyal. If the Congress can’t come back to form a government then the resposibility lies with her.

As things have turned out the Congress has had an incredible surge and the UPA is all set to form the government. So it is only apt that I now say that the credit of the victory lies with Sonia. A couple of things stand out to me : The fact that the government managed to complete 5 years in power inspite of some difficult partners. The government was seen to be doing something esepcially post Mumbai and post economic recession and also doing something for the ‘aam aadmi’. The surge in UP when everyone backed Mayawati to be a national force. I think Mayawati sensed that more than anyone else as she was criticising the Congress the most in her speeches.

I wonder how the new government will be ? Will the Congress be complacent without a Left to keep them on their toes and the absence of a strong BJP which is going through a leadership crisis. The first signal will be in the cabinet formation. I am particularly interested to see who will hold the portfolios for Home and Foreign affairs.

 

Questions in queue

A lot of things in India take a lot of time. That is when things actually do happen. I have often found myself wondering about this time business on a diverse set of issues. Like for example why are movies so long when the plot can be done and dusted in an  hour or so. Why are they long queues to everything. I remember standing at the end of this very long line to get myself admitted in college. I never thought I’ll ever get to the end of that line and I only stuck on because the line behind me was even longer. So by these standards I shouldn’t be suprised that the voting in general elections has taken so long. Yes we have all those numbers , which i have now heard a million times, but even then do we really need to vote over a month in 5 different phases. ? Does UP really need 4 out of those 5 phases to conduct an election ? This is not some far flunged border area but our very own Hindi heartland and bordering the national capital.

While this election drags on for an eternity the governance has come to a standstill. The world is in the middle of an economic crisis, south asia is in the middle of a serious political crisis and what is India doing ? Its between the fourth and fifth phase. The cabinet ministers are out campaigning, chief ministers are out campaigning, bureaucrats are probably speaking to their mates in IB to figure out who to suck up to next and the media has got a sunstroke. Its the silly season in politics. No one has an idea about who will win the election and there are no exit polls. In the absence of any information the media has all these ‘what if ‘ theories. There is no focus on serious issues, no focussing on what the different party programs are , the sole focus is on who will get the numbers to form the next government.

India has great dreams of being a superpower. Yet so much is happening on its door step and I don’t see India anywhere. India in its wisdom has decided to not to interfere in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka and Nepal. Really? When opposition politicians ( in the case of Nepal) and state chief minsiters (in the case of SL) have things to say in their affairs the government has nothing to say. Or do we selectively decide to interfere. We interfere in the case of IPKF and Maldives but not in other cases. Or is it the China factor ? where if we take the moral high ground , then China gets the economic high ground. Yes they are sometimes not the same !

There is a mini civil war happening in Pakistan and India has nothing to add to the arguement ? A recent deal between Afghanistan and Pakistan may open a land route for India to Afghanistan. Its like the silk route days. What is India doing about it ? What is India doing up the land route to north east via Bangladesh ?

There is an ASEAN summit happening soon and the PM can’t go. Why the delay in signing the India – ASEAN free trade agreement ? have we again become too big to ignore ASEAN ?

I am tired of waiting !!

 

Logic of life

There is a lot going on and,as always, I am struggling to make sense of it.  I am struggling to get away from the event to point of it all. I am almost afraid to write about it because I don’t quite know what I am going to write about. Its almost like I am listening to this concert orchestra and all I want to do is listen to the violinist in the 3rd row. To me she holds the key to the symphony , if only I can shut out the rest and manage to focus on her. I feel more disturbed than usual and I can’t seem to be able to look at a glass half full.

I can’t seem to watch/read/listen to anything without being depressed about something. I read a book on Economics and it talks about how the minority are able to successfully lobby for something which is against the interests of a majority. It goes through because the minority want it more than the majority. I thought that this is exactly the problem that democracy was supposed to solve. What is the point of having an election when lobbyists are going have a sway over decision making. If that wasn’t enough there is this subtle difference between bigotry and rational discrimination. If done properly the rational one can actually improve the bottomline. Especially so if the majority discriminate against the minority.

So I sit down to watch some cricket. Good old IPL with some ‘Citi moments of success’ and ‘DLF sixes’ ! For once I am not enjoying the commentary at all and I am not sure where is cricket trying to be with this. Its like the entire game has been compressed into a little test tube.  I really long for a good test match which won’t get over in 4 hours with a zillion ads in the middle and where a boundary is just a boundary and not a Citi moment of success. Maybe I am now spoilt with the BBC’s coverage of F1 with no ads, maybe I am getting old, maybe I am missing the point of it all. Maybe.

I try to keep up with news on the Indian elections. Again I try to shift the chaff from the real issues. I try to read between the lines and I try to understand what do these politicians really stand for, sometimes I give up. But then I tell myself that I can’t give up when people in rural areas are registering high voter turnouts. What are they registering that I am not. What can they see that I can’t. Why this faith in the undeserving politicians of the country. I see people like Malika and Shashi Tharoor stand for elections and I can’t understand why. They are not standing for power and money , so what is it for them. That’s when the cynic in me gives up.

I pop out for lunch today and the Tamils are in full force in front of the high commission with their bells and whistles. They break some windows and call for a ceasefire. I can’t help but question the timing. I almost wanted to stop and reason with the cheer leaders. To me this is an act of desperation if there was one.  This along with my last post on Pakistan and an interesting situation in Nepal . I blogged late last year on how I think South asia will go through significant changes,  but four months into the year and the contours are not clear to me at all.

I wonder what is the capacity of the world to manufacture and handle global events. So America manufactured the Iraq and the Afghan war and is now straddled with them. On top of it there are the crisis in Africa (Sudan, Somalia etc), the global economic crisis, a fast developing pandemic not to mention that the UN millennium goals (remember them ? ) are not going to be met by a far way. As the developed countries try to look after their own economies and citizens who looks after the world’s poor. If their local war won’t get to them then the trade barriers will. The case has been to reduce to trade barriers to let less developed countries export to the rich countries but even an Obama can’t sell that to his countrymen, much easier to give money to car makers.

Nothing seems to get resolved these days. It  just get pushed down the high table only to re-emerge bigger and dirtier.

 

Charlie Wilson’s war

Last night I saw Charlie Wilson’s war. I have seen it before and every time I see it I am amazed at how easy is it for a few smart people with a lot of money to start a war sitting thousands of miles away. Once the war is over the smart people move on to the next challenge. Almost like moving onto the next level on a gaming console. I went to bed thinking it is so easy that it is unfair. I woke up in the morning to Hillary Clinton calling Pakistan a global threat and it was almost like a continuation of the movie. Its the same area, the same problem, except this time over the good guys have become the bad guys. But I wonder what is she really trying to achieve by this. Is it to get the attention of Pakistan leadership, is it to put on the world agenda, or is it something else. This almost feels like the beginning of the buildup to Iraq where the talk was then of how many nukes rather than if they have any.Also this statement to me is different than the earlier ones which focussed on the northern areas and on the border with Pakistan. The statement called on the Pakistani people to speak out “forcefully” against their government’s policy. I am not sure what this means really.

Most developed countries are seized of this threat of Pakistan. The UK has almost developed an annual ritual to catch some Pakistani nationals and deport them back, but even they don’t call Pakistan a ‘global threat’.  But some other people have a slightly different take on things. So what does Hillary know that no one else knows ? And more importantly, what does she plan to do about it. Is this setting the ground for another military takeover by the Pakistan army ? Will the army be forced to finally look away from its eastern frontier and face Taliban ? I suspect that the  answers to these questions are coming very soon.